Acuppa Tae

Acuppa Tae (or just Tae) is my avatar, developed in 2006 to create and teach the award-winning module Virtual Environments: Is one life enough? alongside my colleague Locks Aichi (Dr Claudia Igbrude) from the Learning, Teaching, and Technology Centre at TU Dublin. We operated in the online virtual world of Second Life®, where avatars were originally required to select a surname from a pre-approved list – hence my unique alter ego. These days Acuppa Tae is more frequently known simply as John O’Connor.

The module has been offered continuously since 2009. The following year it earned the Jennifer Burke Award for Innovation in Teaching and Learning in Dublin, and in 2012, it received the Learning Without Frontiers Award for Innovation in Further and Higher Education in London. From 2014 to 2018, we expanded the module internationally, collaborating with Dudley Dreamscape (Prof Dudley Turner) and his students from the University of Akron, Ohio.

In 2021, the module was reimagined once again as the International Student Project, this time partnering with Magua Theriac (Prof Murat Gülmez) at Çağ University in Türkiye and Lissena Wisdomseeker (Lynne Berrett) at Inspiration Island, part of the Whole Brain Health community in Second Life®.

Beyond teaching, I’m also involved in the broader virtual education community. I serve as a board member of the Virtual Worlds Education Consortium (VWEC) and in 2021, Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life®, invited VWEC to establish and manage a dedicated educational space known as the VWEC Eduverse. In this role, I also contribute to the Events Team, presenting the Expert Talks series and participate in the Working Advisory Committee.

My work in virtual environments has allowed me to connect with educators, students, and innovators across the globe, and I’m always excited to explore new opportunities for collaboration and learning in these dynamic spaces.